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3 years back, Nirbhaya case created a stir in society as it saw a lower abyss in society. 6 persons were convicted for the heinous crime of rape, one of them was a juvenile. The  same juvenile created another stir when he walked out of juvenile rehabilitation home in December 2015. Icing to the cake of stirs was amendment of Juvenile Justice Act which added the provision that a juvenile of age between 16 to 18 be treated as adult for heinous crimes. Though this amendment has been criticized, but most peculiar and scientific criticism has come from Neuroscience professionals. They argue that the part called frontal lobe - the front part of the brain, is underdeveloped at the age between 16-18. This is the part which is responsible for decision making, impulse control, judgement and emotions. They further argue that in the condition of stress, the same frontal lobe shrinks losing their capacity to process information. In turn, the back of brain Amygdala - which is responsible fo...

Background The negotiating process on climate change revolves around the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP), which meets every year to review the implementation of the Convention. This year this process culminates in Copenhagen. At Bali, Parties agreed to jointly step up international efforts to combat climate change and get to an agreed outcome in Copenhagen in 2009. Thus, an ambitious climate change deal will be clinched to follow on the first phase of the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Why is a deal so important? We know the world is warming, on average by 0.74ºC during the past century, with most of that since 1970. The IPCC has reported regularly on climate change science for 20 years. Its last report was “unequivocal” that climate change is with us, and is set to get drastically worse unless we take urgent action. Nature, through both oceans and forests, currently absorbs ab...

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions . These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention  encouraged  industrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol  commits  them to do so. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December...

December 29, 2014 The Bodo areas in Assam are witnessing bloodshed once again. The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit faction) [NDFB-S] is alleged to have targeted the  Adivasi  settlers in the two districts of Sonitpur and Kokrajhar, killing nearly 78 and leaving many seriously injured. It appears that this carnage started in retaliation to the death of three NDFB (S) cadres during a counter-insurgency operation conducted by the Mahar Regiment on December 21 against the outfit’s camp in the Chirang District along the Assam-Bhutan border. Information from the ground reveal that the NDFB-S may have targeted the  Adivasi  settlers near the forest areas suspecting them of providing intelligence about their movement to the counter-insurgency forces. The faction is known to have regularly targeted people both from Bodo and non-Bodo ethnicities on suspicion of being police informants, like the case of a 16-year old Bodo school girl who was dragg...